Sunday, 30 December 2012

These round-ups of what I've been making during the year are one of those things that I think maybe no-one but me cares about... but I so enjoy looking back over the year and at past years' round-ups that I'm gonna keep on writing them anyway, ha ha. (If you do like these posts & fancy a blast from the past, you can check out my "review" posts from 2011, 2010, 2009 and 2008 if you like)

I've taken quite a bit of time off this year thanks to family stuff & a nasty patch of creative block, but looking back over the year I still seem to have squeezed in quite a lot of craftiness. I remember reading somewhere that it's a good idea to keep a "done" list as well as a "to do" list so you get to see how much you achieve instead of always feeling like there are so many things still to do. My blog is my own personal "done" list, I guess!

The Valentine's Day craftiness continued in February, with a cross stitch heart brooch and an embroidered heart hoop. I also had a couple of Making Days dedicated to just, well, making things instead of being distracted by emails and admin and all the other other necessary-but-not-exactly-creative tasks that usually dominate my schedule.

I also set up a brand new shop over at Big Cartel, which is something that'd been on my to do list for ages. I'm very glad I got round to it as I'm really pleased with the new shop, I find it very easy to manage and hopefully my customers find it easier to use as well.

The creative block continued in June, but so did work on my sky blanket which was now almost halfway to being finished:

Friday, 28 December 2012

Here's a quick snap I took a couple of weeks ago and forgot to share with you guys - I was sewing a whole bunch of snowy owls and realised that the movie I was watching at the time was rather appropriate!

Thursday, 27 December 2012

It's a bit hard to take photos of quilts, isn't it? Especially in the winter!

Anyway... as you can see, it's actually starting to look like a quilt now. I still think it's a bit ugly, but it turns out my mum really likes it so it's going to have a loving home to go to after all. Hurrah :)

I've got to fill in the missing section (the squares in that corner really didn't match up with the rest of the quilt, so I've taken it out to use for a cushion or something similar) and then add a few more rows, maybe five, depending on how many squares I've got left in my stash.

And then, of course, I've got to turn it from a big piece of patchwork into an actual quilt! Lots of sewing to do before I reach that stage though.

Saturday, 22 December 2012

A while ago I blogged about my sky blanket and said something like "I'm determined to keep up to date with the squares so I can finish the blanket by the end of the year". Keep up to date with a project in my busy season?? Foolishness!

There's just a few more days to go before I stop recording sky colours for the blanket (the last day = the 25th, which I know isn't the actual end of the year but it's the only way to get a blanket that's a rectangle) but I've not sewn a square onto the blanket since mid-late November, and am also quite a way behind with knitting the squares. I'll get there eventually :)

Friday, 21 December 2012

As well as knitting simple blanket squares when I was a little under the weather, I wound lots of skeins of embroidery floss onto bobbins and filed them neatly in my thread boxes. I've bought quite a few new colours lately, so my thread collection has expanded from one box to two:

There's a big rainbow of "random" floss from all sorts of different shops and brands, and then the colours to the right of the second box are all DMC threads with the bobbins neatly labelled with the shade numbers.

I love how pretty and cheerful the boxes of thread look, and having the thread wound on the bobbins makes it much easier to find the colours I want in my stash and to use (and store) the thread without it tangling.

I'm also slowly winding bobbins with the shades from the embroidery thread pack I sell in my shops, so I can use them in some new product images in the spring...

This is one of those jobs that's been on my to do list for ages - it feels great to be finally getting on with it!

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